sanatanhindusikh
shastarvidiya
theindependent

After a brief pause the tall man walks forward, runs a hand through his thick beard and announces with a slight hint of a Black Country accent: 'The next technique I'll teach you is one that can break both a man's arms in just three moves.'

'In real life of course, once you've broken the first arm your opponent is not getting back up. But when you're practising it's best to learn how to break both.'

The martial art that the men are practising is Shastar Vidiya – a now little-known fighting technique from north India that virtually died out when the British Raj banned it after the final, bloody defeat of the Sikh empire in the mid-19th century.

While Chinese and Japanese fighting forms such as kung fu and ju-jitsu have become national institutions, Shastar Vidiya has languished alongside many of India's fighting techniques as a forgotten art form.